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It’s been an exciting two weeks for the Haas IBD Citibanamex team! We came, we met, we ate, we worked, and we conquered – in that order.

Meeting Citibanamex

Our main client contact, Alex West, had done an incredible job setting us up with teams all around the bank. We had meetings with the CIO, the new head of UX, directors in the eCommerce group, and a lot of exposure to their relatively new Innovation and Digital teams. We visited their call center, the digital factory, a new smart branch, and this afternoon we will be ending our experience at the still-in-the-works Innovation Lab.

Citibanamex has been investing a lot in innovation and digitizing their experience, and they’ve seeded these teams with existing bank experts as well as recruiting from the likes of Wal-Mart and IBM. We had a lot of opportunities to talk to them in 4-on-1s, and everyone was incredibly generous with their time and resources. They were excited about our project and wanted to help in any way they could.

The Project

Our project: propose a new insurance product for Seguros Citibanamex, with a focus on how to execute it through digital channels. We’ve spent these past few weeks ideating around this – specifically a product that would be appealing to women. At the end of the day, we would go back to the hotel room and brainstorm and argue about what features would be the most important (see picture below). We were lucky enough to have a team dynamic where we could argue with each other but never take it personally.

More than once, we came up with the only partially joking conclusion that, “Insurance is a perfect product.” As the Deputy CEO of Seguros Citibanamex reminded us, “Insurance is a wonderfully complex product that also does a world of social good.” We ultimately came up with a product that we very proud of: Sueños Seguros Citibanamex. It is an investment-insurance product that helps women realize their dreams.

The Final Presentation

We presented it yesterday morning, and Alex and Gaby Galindo (Citibanamex’s head of innovation) did us the great honor of setting us up in Citibanamex’s beautiful palace downtown. We started at 8 am in a comedor, where we were served breakfast and Gaby welcomed everyone to the morning’s events. In addition to us, Gaby and Alex, we had 13 additional guests from the insurance team, ranging from product managers to the Deputy CEO of Seguros Citibanamex. We could tell that we were helping to bring these two organizations together and were both honored and nervous at the responsibility.

Fortunately, the presentation went really well. Right after we pitched the product, people began asking us questions. At first, we were worried that it meant our product was going to be received poorly – but it soon became clear that they were all excited by our proposed innovations and wanted to work through exactly what that would look like.

At the end of the presentation, the leader of the Insurance team thanked all of us for our work and told us that every part of our product seemed feasible – except for potentially the technical components (such as our proposed insurance simulator or process flows through their insurance app.)

We were so pleased with how our presentation went – and pleasantly surprised to hear that they would continue to iterate on our work and that one day we may see a version of our product on the Seguros Citibanamex website.

The Last Days

The rest of the day was a dream: an archivist led us on a tour of the Citibanamex palace downtown, we went out to lunch with the insurance team for traditional Mexican food and were very sad to leave them at the end. Finally, one of the team members led us on a tour of the Zocolo. We had been there just the week before, but this experience really showed us what a difference having a local with us makes. He made us go in buildings that we had just walked by before, and we were stunned by how incredibly beautiful these buildings were. There was the gold-plated Post Office, with a stunning staircase in the middle that made us all gasp out loud when we saw it.

As our experience is coming near the end, we’re both excited to be going home and sad about leaving all the people we’ve met in our two weeks here. There is the lady at the front desk who provides us all of our security badges every morning. She asks about what we have done, and Austin entertains her with stories about eating chapulines (grasshoppers), meeting his new favorite luchador, Fuego, and driving on the streets of Mexico City. There is Thelma, the incredibly kind administrative aid that brings us water and books our meetings, finds us rooms, and helps us when we don’t know how to handle a situation. When we walk around the office now, we see people that we know and we stop and chat – it’s hard to imagine that we only showed up two weeks ago.

We’ve seen and accomplished a lot in the last two weeks and we couldn’t have had a better experience.

After a whirlwind week of finishing finals, packing up our apartments and saying goodbyes to our friends in Berkeley, our team of five – Elspeth, Mike, Kevin, Gianfranco, and Taylor – headed to Southeast Asia to complete our consulting project for Ananda, a premier real estate developer in Thailand. Ananda, founded by a Haas alum, is one of the largest condominium developers in Bangkok. We were tasked with conducting a competitor analysis and developing a growth strategy plan to help Ananda achieve its aggressive growth targets.

Team Ananda in front of Marina Bay Sands

The Adventure Begins

The team decided to take a detour en route to Bangkok and spent the weekend before our official start date in Singapore, our team lead Elspeth’s home country. Harsh, another classmate and IBD team lead, was also in town and the two of them were incredibly gracious hosts, showing us all of their favorite Singapore hotspots. We explored Orchard Rd, Clarke Quay, Gardens by the Bay, and the beautiful Marina Bay Sands hotel, where we took breathtaking photos of the city. We enjoyed an incredible dinner with Elspeth’s family and a great day at Sentosa, definite highlights of the weekend. The weekend was the perfect start to our Southeast Asian adventure and was a nice mini vacation prior to arriving in Bangkok and hitting the ground running with our client.

Enjoying dinner with the Ong Family.

Ananda Week 1

Our client met us in the lobby of our hotel Monday morning to bring us to the office, which was conveniently located next door; the proximity proved to be a huge blessing as we came to know the huge challenge that is Bangkok traffic. We spent the first week introducing ourselves to key stakeholders within the company and conducting interviews to validate the work we had done in Berkeley. We spoke to employees who had worked at other real estate development companies and pulled on the expertise of strategic business development VPs. We made use of consumer surveys and other market intelligence research the company had conducted and incorporated all of this new information into our analysis.

By the end of the first week, we had validated our competitive analysis processes and reworked some of our strategies based on client feedback. We had spent most of our time with our main point of contact, Khun Lloyd, who was incredibly generous with his time and went out of his way to ensure we had a proper introduction to Bangkok. He kept us busy with lunches and dinners throughout the week, and it quickly became evident how important relationship building is to doing business in Thailand. We had also discovered the magic of Thai massages and began planning our spa visits for the remaining time in country!

After some much-needed massages.

Team Ananda before Day of Arrival Presentation

Angkor Waaaat

After our first week of work, we headed out to Siem Reap, Cambodia! Our trip to the airport was our first real taste of Bangkok traffic and we ended up using multiple modes of transportation, running through the streets and the airport, and convincing an airport employee to help us cut the immigration line in order to make our flight. The crazy travel experience was well worth it and we very much enjoyed our time exploring various temples in Siem Reap and hanging out at our fancy Airbnb, equipped with a pool in the living room. We had a relaxing day on Sunday at Phnom Kulen where we swam and played in waterfalls all day.

Team Ananda in action at Ankor Wat

Week 2

Week two began with a day of site visits to both Ananda and competitor properties. We were impressed by our client’s showrooms and model units, which clearly stood out from their competitors. The attention to detail and beautiful interior design made us all want to invest in Thai property!

The team contemplating purchasing some Thai property

The rest of the week was spent conducting final research and putting the finishing touches on our final presentation deck, which we presented Friday of Week 2 to the CEO and our main points of contact, Dr. John and K. Lloyd. The presentation went well and we had a great discussion about our recommended strategies, learning that many of the workstreams we suggested were already under consideration. Additionally, we discovered our client’s passion for technology. The team is quite visionary and frequents tech hubs such as Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv to scope innovations that could be used to improve their properties and/or work processes.

All smiles after the final presentation

Week 3

Having completed our presentation and main assignment at the end of week two, we spent week three networking and exploring Bangkok. Our client put a strong emphasis on us using our time in country to understand Thai culture and life in Bangkok and encouraged us to use week three to gain this knowledge. We met with another Berkeley alum, K. Paul Ark, who heads up the VC arm of SCB, one of Thailand’s major banks. We connected with a Haas 2015 alum who started his own VC fund and learned more about his post-Haas experience and the work he does in bridging Thailand and San Francisco. We are grateful to have had this free time to further explore Bangkok and to gain a deeper understanding of business in Thailand. We feel spoiled to have been connected with so many interesting people and feel lucky to have spent these three weeks at Ananda. We look forward to staying in touch with our new contacts and will see many of our Ananda contacts in August when they visit the Bay Area!

The IBD Evening Weekend MBA (EWMBA) Teams are on their way to their in-country destinations where they will spend the next two weeks working with their IBD clients before presenting their final recommendations on July 14th. Despite only having a short 6 weeks to prepare, IBD teams are ready to start their time with their clients, face-to-face. Teams are traveling to Harare, Phnom Penh, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo. Are they ready? Faculty Mentor and Instructor, Frank Schultz shares that his students “can’t wait! They have been preparing with such intensity for their in-country time. They have formed very good relationships with their clients via skype, google hangouts, etc, but are anxious to work directly with their clients.”

While the teams have been digging into the scope of the project and learning about their client’s industries, they have also been focusing on team dynamics. ACT Team Lead, Praveen Settipalli is impressed with all that his team has accomplished in a short 6 weeks. “Our team has quickly bonded and formed a trust that has helped us to divide and conquer our workload and be able to deliver what we promised to our client.”

In addition to great team dynamics, the Team Leads must put all of team members’ skills to work. This may be one of the hardest parts of the role, but when it is done right, it is one of the most rewarding. Sushant Barave, the Team Lead for Samai Distillery, has found this part of the journey “personally satisfying”. He has been working with a “great bunch of Hassies” who “in several aspects, are at a higher level of expertise in specific subject matters, than me”. Sushant has looked to his peers to provide a “high level of expertise in specific industries and functions” and he feels that his peers “strengths have created a tremendous learning opportunity for all of us, (that) hopefully set (them) up for delivering a quality product to their client.”

It should be no surprise that the time in-country makes the whole process more productive and manageable. It is difficult trying to communicate via video platforms across time zones, language differences, and cultural nuances. Teams and clients are excited to break down those barriers and dig into their projects face-to-face.

Team Lead, Kalyan Pentapalli, and his team are ready to get to Sao Paulo to work with their client Aramis Menswear. With no retail experience on the team, they have had to get up to speed quickly. This is exactly the experience that they hoped to get by signing up for IBD. “In the past month, I have learned so much about consulting and retail, more than I have learned in the two and a half years of being in the MBA program,” Kalyan shared.

Cambodia’s first rum distillery. Founders Daniel and Antonio grew up in Venezuela, soaking in rum culture and drinking the best rums of the world

Sushant couldn’t agree more with his classmate, Kalyan. “I am super excited about getting to Cambodia. I feel it is all coming together. Over the last 6 weeks, we have already been able to apply several concepts we grasped as part of our coursework at Haas. Part of our project focuses on operations, and I can see our (Berkeley-Haas) Operations Professor talking about inventory management concepts that we are trying to apply. We are also be looking at the quality of financial statements as well as pricing and expansion which bring together the knowledge we have gained at Haas. One of the main reasons I wanted to be a part of IBD was to see how we can apply what we learned in the classroom to the real world. This is where the rubber meets the road. In a couple of days we start to find out what works and what doesn’t in a practical setting. This is the most exciting part. In some ways, most of our work in Berkeley has been on paper and now it’s time to test it. We are going to do that over the next two weeks.“

IBD Team & ACT 2015

This summer, two teams are working with repeat clients, ACT and Samai Distillery, and having the past IBD exposure has helped with efficiently this year. Samai’s Co-Founder, Daniel Pacheco learned a lot from the “previous year where communication was not great before the team arrived. It was hard for us to understand capabilities and expectations and also because things change so fast being a startup. But with this team, we discussed these points from the very beginning and were able to have a more effective approach.” These insights benefited this year’s Samai team and they were able to define a clear scope and identifying which deliverables would be the most useful.

Two weeks can go by very quickly and with so much to accomplish, clients and students are anxious to hit the ground running. Kalyan’s team has already presented their full day agenda and wish list for customer and stakeholder interviews to Aramis. Fabio Davidovici, Aramis’s Strategic Planning Director, is anxious for the team to arrive so they can “have great discussions and clever insights”. Samai’s co-founder’s goals are to get them more familiar with the business, then they will spend time gathering as much data as needed to finalize their deliverables. “We hope these deliverables will not just be a one-off report, but tools that can be used by us to work more efficiently moving forward…it was also very valuable for us to be able to pick the teams brains about areas that might be outside the agreed scope,” shares Daniel Pacheco. ACT’s Team will stay in their client’s home for the two weeks that they are in Harare. Praveen says they are excited to experience the intensity and productiveness of a work and living situation. He also mentioned that his client has a pool and so that makes the six-day work week more appealing.

On the eve of their departure, we are excited to get all of our Berkeley-Haas students safely to their destinations and started on their team and personal IBD journeys. We are confident in their abilities to provide their clients with valuable insights and recommendations. As one of our 2017 Full-Time MBA Team Lead’s shared after returning from her in-country experience, “IBD really is all it’s cracked up to be.” We expect the same reaction from our Evening Weekend MBA teams.

The room was buzzing with three languages, and communication was a game of telephone. One of the Syrian primary students would excitedly share something in Arabic, at which point it was translated into Turkish by a Syrian university student, and then a staff member from Young Guru Academy (YGA) would share it in English with our Berkeley-Haas IBD team of five. Nuance was definitely lost through these piecemeal verbal communications, and we came from radically different backgrounds – lives interrupted by the Syrian Civil War, educations defined by a single test score, and former careers in consulting, software engineering, and clean energy. Yet there was one language in the room that we all understood perfectly – science.

YGA university student volunteers leading a science workshop with Syrian primary school students in Gaziantep. Annie concentrating hard on remembering how electrical circuits work!

Our team, fondly nicknamed “The Turkish Delights,” was at one of YGA’s science workshops with Syrian refugees in Gaziantep – a city in southeast Turkey, just 20 miles from the Syrian border. At first glance, this activity seemed somewhat removed from the formal scope of our project with YGA – developing the strategic business plan for the new Aziz Sancar Science Center, set to open in Istanbul in 2018. We were struggling to understand how participating in YGA’s science workshops in Gaziantep and Trabzon would inform our marketing and financial plans for the Science Center. Coming from high-pressure, deliverable-oriented careers prior to Haas, we all wondered if our time would be better spent at our computers, modeling projected visitor numbers and coming up with creative marketing tactics. The business plan was the whole reason we were here after all, right?

Mariana answering the hardest of science questions, like “Where is Mexico?”

Now in our second week, we have realized the immense gift YGA gave us by immersing us in their culture, projects, and relationships for the first week. Coming into our in-country time with YGA, we knew it would be anything but your typical client-consultant relationship given our interactions from Berkeley, but this experience has exceeded all expectations.

On paper, YGA is a non-profit organization that cultivates “selfless leaders” who will create a brighter future for younger generations through innovative, community-based programs and technologies. These projects include Science and Innovation Workshops, My Dream Companion for the visually-impaired, and the Young Leaders Program for high school students.

When the students insisted on giving us a Turkish dance lesson at the end of one science workshop, we couldn’t say no!

However, the projects themselves are merely tools that YGA uses to instill confidence, humility, and optimism in Turkey’s young generations, with the hope that they will one day lead more socially-conscious organizations and companies. The process of implementing these projects – the planning, the evaluation, the personal growth – is the true goal and measure of success. For example, we ran three separate workshops – one for Syrian refugees, one for orphans, and one for underprivileged students – and although we couldn’t communicate perfectly in any of them, science gave us common ground to which to connect. After each workshop, we paused to reflect on how the students interacted with us and the material, and we all left having learned something about ourselves.

Amol mastering a self-driving car with Syrian students at a science workshop in Gaziantep.

This has been a very new way of thinking and working for us, as we come from jobs where the destination – what you produce – is far more important than the journey. Only by experiencing YGA’s model firsthand could we internalize the notion that success can also be defined as a thoughtful, self-reflective process that leads to personal and collective growth.

Our client Duygu giving us the rundown of all the delicious homemade Turkish dishes!

YGA has made us feel like family, from inviting us to a homemade Turkish dinner at our client’s apartment to including us in their weekly executive leadership meetings.

The future location of the new Aziz Sancar Science Center at Istanbul Technical University’s (İTÜ) Maçka campus, which currently holds very outdated science and technology exhibits.

We have now lived and breathed the YGA way and will deliver a business plan for the Science Center that integrates both the tangible programs and intangible values that define this incredible organization. Earlier this week, when we visited the building in Istanbul where the Aziz Sancar Science Center will open next year, the impact of our project felt more real than ever.

These two weeks have been a blur, and we don’t anticipate it slowing down for the remainder of our time. While we’ve had to squeeze time at our computers into odd hours given the packed, immersive days with YGA, we have still managed to find moments to explore Turkey’s rich cultural – and culinary – offerings! We spent a few hours touring Trabzon with a very jolly tour guide who shared all of the local jokes and stuffed ourselves with Gaziantep’s world famous katmer!

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We have also been befriending Istanbul’s well-cared-for stray cats and popping into the city’s gorgeous mosques at every chance.

The full depth of the IBD experience likely won’t hit home until we are on our return flights or starting our summer internships because it is so much to digest both personally and professionally. We all know, however, that YGA has forever changed how we define success.

“Hi guys, tomorrow, we’ll be leaving from your hotel at 4:30 AM in order to get on the road to Bandung. Will you be awake?”

There’s seems to be little choice in the matter. Our team is scheduled to attend one of many community events that Diamond Fair puts on in the neighborhoods around their ten existing Diamond Fair stores. The stores are a part of a recent retail initiative launched by the manufacturer, Diamond Cold Storage’s distribution company, Sukanda Djaya. The stores, together called “Diamond Fair” work to complete a trilogy of vertical integration that few companies have the luxury of pulling off profitably. In order to make the morning event on time, we have to beat the infamous Jakarta traffic.

17:00, Thursday, May 18th

“Actually, we have to meet the rest of the team for breakfast at 4:30, so please be ready at 4:00 AM and we will drive over”.

No problem at all. Up to this point, we have only been on-site for four days and are acclimating slowly to the 14-hour time difference. Our gracious client has put us up at the Harris Hotel in Bekasi, a city about an hour outside of the industrial park that houses PT. Diamond Cold Storage. Bekasi is about an hour from the capital city, Jakarta.

Team Diamond Fair’s Family Photo

The Harris Hotel is attached to a mall, so we learn to entertain ourselves in the evenings at one of the nightly concerts or with strolls around the four-story building. A group of us take to trying new restaurants while the others spend an hour in the gym. By the end of our trip, we see the mall/hotel as home and commemorate our stay with a team photo shoot filled with silly, Awkward Family Photos at a professional portrait store in the basement.

4:15, Friday, May 17th

One of our client colleagues, Nurdin, picks us up from the hotel. We usually spend our car rides playing dice or Batachelli but none of us are in the mood at this hour.

4:35, Friday, May 17th

The client has picked up quickly on Mackenzie’s love of coffee and they decide to stop for breakfast at a 24-hour Starbucks to kick off our journey. The 12 of us pile into the quiet Starbucks for coffees, pastries, and yogurt. Looking outside, hundreds of cars, vans, and trucks are already backed up for miles on the highway bordering the Starbucks.

We are fascinated, but only slightly. Within the week that we’ve been there, we learn that at least half of the 12-person Diamond Fair team is traveling more than 2 hours each way to get to work. The new infrastructure projects commissioned by Indonesian President Jokowi exacerbate the traffic, but will hopefully provide respite via two elevated train lines within the next few years.

Diamond Fair’s mobile truck

5:00, Friday, May 17th

By 5:00 AM, we’re on the road again, heading to the “Paris of Indonesia” otherwise known as Bandung. The nickname is a reference to the fact that most “Made in Indonesia” tag items are manufactured there. As a result, the city is filled with outlets and factory stores for excess clothing from brands we know well.

7:00, Friday, May 17th

We park and walk into a concrete clearing behind office buildings to find the first event already underway. Diamond Fair is one of the sponsors for one of the city appreciation events. The event is a sports day and Diamond Fair’s mobile truck selling ice cream, juice, milk, and several other products already sits gleaming on the sideline. A large crowd forms around the truck and they sell more than 75 transactions within the hour.

Mackenzie holding a beautiful baby

A small group of men asks for pictures with us, and it sets off a flurry of photo shoots that culminate in a woman handing Mackenzie her new-born baby for a sweet shot.

9:00, Friday, May 17th

We make it to the town of Cimahi where the most profitable Diamond Fair store sits. We have planned a focus group discussion and begin preparing the office. From 10 AM to 12 PM, we see over 30 customers and non-customers asking a slew of questions about their shopping habits, experience with Diamond Fair, willingness to order online and more. The focus groups are especially eye-opening because we have so many preconceived notions about buying habits from the United States that are completely different in Indonesia. The average Indonesian grocery shopper is likely a matriarch and is completely driven by price promotions. They will travel well out of their way just to save a few cents and are especially agnostic to ordering online despite the time and cost of travel. We also meet several small business owners who make a good starting base for a potential subscription delivery service idea that we are considering. Both reference community and referrals as a major way that they learn about offers and new stores. Their answers validate many of Diamond Fair’s PR and promotion strategies.

Consumer Interviews

13:00, Friday, May 17th

After FGDs, we grab lunch and try eating the traditional meals with our hands for the first time as Indonesians would. The team orders us a buffet of items, chicken, several styles of fish, sautéed vegetables, and a couple tofu and tempeh options for Annie, the vegetarian of our group. The food is delicious and we wrap it up with coconut waters straight from the fruit.

15:00, Friday, May 17th

After lunch, we head out to a “CompShop”, shorthand for a competitor shopping exercise, to observe what other grocery chains are doing. This includes how they display and promote items, what their loyalty programs entail and where Diamond products are positioned. It takes two hours to get to our first grocery story and we are astonished to find out later that it is only a couple of kilometers away.

19:00, Friday, May 17th

Two CompShops and several hours later we head to dinner at a fancy restaurant overlooking the water. Here we would have one of the very rare occasions on the trip, in the majority-Muslim country, to drink alcohol.

Around 10:30 PM after lots of laughs and a full stomach, we are happy to head back to the hotel for the night. Tomorrow is another early wake-up call.

6:00, Saturday, May 18th

We begin driving back to the Diamond Fair Cimahi store, this time for a community Zumba event.

7:00, Saturday, May 18th

As described in our poem, the Zumba event is filled with high energy and great music. Over 20 men and women of all ages hustle alongside an instructor cloaked in matching black and blue sweat suit emblazed with the word, “Zumba”. In fact, everyone is dressed for the occasion with a couple of women looking almost like superheroes with their neon outfits and matching headscarves. An exuberant woman dressed in a baby blue and pink sweat suit pumping effortlessly to the music in the front encourages the crowd with loud, passionate calls to move and get into the music. It is unclear whether she knows the instructor or is simply a good Samaritan, but she makes all of us smile with excitement.

Karin, Mackenzie, and Annie join in for the workout and Tyler charms with a couple of moves of his own.

Zumba

9:00, Saturday, May 18th

The final event of the weekend is a cooking demonstration led by PR Head, Indri. She shows the women how to make Eggs Bolognese with Diamond branded items and then lets them try it with some Diamond-owned Jungle Juice. The women enjoy the event and once again we are impressed with the reach and attendance of each event. After all, only one store has been open for more than seven months. The events show how dedicated Diamond Fair is to making their B2C strategy work and it helps drive us more to create the best recommendations for the Indonesian context. Plus, we have a lot of fun.

12:00, Saturday, May 18th

Cooking demonstration

We pile into the car for the long journey back to Bekasi. It has been quite the weekend, but these two days make us feel more knowledgeable than ever about our client and their business. We’re happy to have been a part of it all.

India is the world’s second most populous nation and arguably the world’s most exciting business environment. Despite all of us traveling extensively, no one on our IBD team had ever been to the country. We were thrilled to navigate a new business landscape as part of such a unique program, all while exploring a country that we had heard so much about. Yet we were faced with a daunting project scope from our client, ElectroMech, in an industry we knew very little about – crane and material handling equipment manufacturing. Our scope was to broadly explore disruptive technologies and business opportunities that would allow the company to grow revenue 25x from $40 million to $1 billion in the next 10 years (sounds easy, doesn’t it?!). Not to mention, we were handicapped as our team lead could not travel with us. Despite these factors, we knew the ElectroMech team was eager to have our input and help us in any way possible – with their support we were ready to help the company grow!

First Week

Our trip to Pune from Berkeley was over 24 hours and involved many adjustments (new culture, different food, and habits, crazy

Day 1 – Our team visiting the factory floor to understand the production process

drivers and a 12-hour time difference from California), all while preparing for our day-of-arrival presentation. One would think that the first-week in-country would be rough, right? Well, while it certainly had its challenges, the overall experience was nothing short of amazing. Pune is a rapidly expanding city located about three hours by car from Mumbai. We quickly found it to be filled with very friendly and helpful people, great food and an ambitious and ready-to-work client. The first interaction with the ElectroMech team was our day-of-arrival presentation, in which we were able to meet many other leaders of the company, showing them our goals and explaining how important our interactions with them would be in order to achieve a successful project. The presentation was followed by a tour of the factory floor – quite helpful in understanding ElectroMech’s processes and organization – and by the kick-off of our internal meetings with members of the organization.

“Crane Score” – the number of cranes ElectroMech has built at this plant.

ElectroMech organized many meetings with their division heads and team members so we could develop a full understanding of where the company currently stood as well as the company’s strategy. Every interview – we spoke with sales, design, engineering, finance, innovation and others – was very helpful for us, in the sense of corroborating and invalidating parts of the hypothesis we had developed, identifying new opportunities and generating new ideas for our final presentation. We also interviewed local and multinational clients and partners of the company to support this process.

Second Week

A lot of work, but a lot of fun – that’s the best definition of our second week in Pune. After a sightseeing weekend in Mumbai and a

Our team with ElectroMech’s Board and the Managing Director’s family after our final presentation

few more meetings with customers and partners on Monday, it was then time to focus on our main assignment in India: a two-hour presentation to ElectroMech’s Board of Directors on Friday. The expectations from the company were very high, and we felt that we had quite the responsibility considering all the attention and support that we had received. We needed to deliver a great presentation and point to innovative solutions and opportunities for ElectroMech.

Our final presentation to the board on Friday, May 26th

The team worked very well together and, even though we had a few long nights researching and tirelessly editing PowerPoint slides, we all were happy with the intensive learning and growth we were experiencing. It was great to use insights discovered during our interviews to better explore and assess the technologies and potential new business models we were proposing for ElectroMech. For example, by interacting with ElectroMech clients we identified key core competencies that allowed the company to stand out from the competition, as well as what new technological core competencies needed from ElectroMech in order to increase productivity and reliability. After several meetings discussing the presentation, working through nine different versions of the slides and practicing the full presentation a few times – it was time to show the result of our work to ElectroMech’s management and the Board.

The final result was great! Our recommendations brought to life several discussions among the board members – just as we hoped it would – and the overall reaction was very positive. The hard work was definitely worth it, and we could finally relax and prepare for a great weekend in New Delhi and Agra… after all, it was about time we visited the Taj Mahal!

Johnny, Jose and Jeff at the Taj Mahal during the second weekend of the trip

Closing

Overall, the ElectroMech IBD project was an amazing experience for us. Not only in understanding more about India – that it is indeed a vibrant country with huge potential for further growth and development – but also the opportunity to work with ElectroMech was unique. We are getting back to Berkeley more prepared for our next professional steps, and certainly with lots of amazing stories to tell!

Written by: Danner Doud-Martin, Assistant Director, Operations for the IBD Program

When I introduced myself to the Full-Time MBAs on their first day of class for the Spring IBD program, I told them I wanted to either be the sixth member of their team or be stowed in their suitcases. There wasn’t a team I didn’t want to join as all 16 were going to work with great clients, on impactful projects, and in amazing destinations. Now that our IBD students are scattered all over the world and sending photos and updates from their first weeks in-country, I am of course envious, but also proud to be a part of a program like IBD. I am living vicariously through our Haas students as they have experiences that perhaps will change their lives, or at least make these next three weeks incredibly exciting.

Team YGA having breakfast on Bosphorus river

Teams tell us that they have been welcomed by their clients and the other members of the organizations with warmth, appreciation, and support. They have enjoyed delicious local cuisine, been invited to people’s homes and seen the local sites. They have toured crane factories, hospitals, warehouses, and flower markets. Teams have scrubbed up and witnessed eye surgeries in Peru, been included in their client’s internal pitch meetings in Shanghai, and invited to lunch by the Prime Minister of Uganda. They have been featured on local Turkish television and have conducted 3-hour design workshops for university students in Uganda.

Team Seva before going into to witness a surgery in Peru

Importantly, they have learned more about their client’s needs: “One interesting thing that we have realised in our first 2 days is how much more we know of the business and the internal politics behind our client by just being here; which is something not very clear when you are sitting that far away,” shared one Team Lead. There is an opportunity now to “fill in our gaps in knowledge through the interviews, market visits, and retail store visits we have scheduled over the next several weeks. We look forward to the rest of the trip!” shared the Agripacific Team. IBD Teams also feel more connection to the client’s objective and how important the project outcome is to their client. “It is most exciting to be on the ground here and feel the immensity and importance of the work that our client does,” shared Blakey Larson, IBD Team Lead for Civil Right Defenders. IBD teams also see where and how they can add value. Team Lead, Harsh Thusu said of his project, “we are most excited about helping the accelerator in this interesting journey as they are at a crucial stage of their operations and our recommendations could bring great value to them to tap into the US market with a sustainable business model.”

Team ElectroMech

On their first day in-country, IBD Teams gave a day-of-arrival presentation, updating their clients on their findings to date and outlining their 3-week work plan leading up to their final presentations. Teams felt good about their presentations and expressed how “engaged their clients were.” They appreciated the collaboration, feedback, and lively discussions. Carolyn Chuong, Team Lead for Team Makerere said that their clients were “very enthusiastic and also helped us refine our Theory of Change for the Center and think through private sector needs.”

“This team is exceptional. They are very innovative, articulate, friendly and professional. The team has the right blend of skills because everyone is so good at what he or she does while at the same time, everyone is working as a team. The testimony from our Makerere students, who attended today’s design workshop led by the IBD Team, were so amusing. I like the natural blend they are having with our students, staff and the general population of Makerere. We shall surely miss our Haas students when they leave”.

YGA’s Sezin AYDIN said of Team Lead Chelsea Harris’s performance at their press conference, “Chelsea has done a great job, you

Team Ananda

can see how clearly she conveyed her messages, in a calm yet positively energizing way. We are very happy that we had a chance to offer this kind of experience to our team and very glad that we represented YGA & Berkeley and the mission we serve together in science center project the most beautiful way possible”.

My favorite compliment was from Makerere’s Charles Baguma who said, “I think we got a high-flying team from Berkeley”. In my opinion, Mr. Baguma’s comment resonates with me because Team Makerere and all of the other 15 Full-Time IBD teams are exceptional. Based on their photos and comments, all the teams feel they are flying high right now. Is it because of the incredible opportunity to work internationally on a consulting project? Is it because of the impact that our students are making on the company and the region or the bonds that are being formed between team members as they share this incredible journey? Is it the beautiful places they are visiting and the culture that they are experiencing? It is all of the above and more!

You can enjoy their adventures by friending us on Facebook at bit.ly/facebookibd. Each week we will post a blog written by each IBD team highlighting their experiences, and our first one written by Team Makerere can be found here. You can also subscribe to our blog by going to bit.ly/ibdblog.

While the Full-Time MBA (FTMBA) program is at the end of their engagement with IBD, 18 Evening and Weekend MBA (EWMBA) students kicked off their IBD experience on May 14th. This is the 6th year that the course has been offered to EWMBA students and although the program is very similar to the FTMBA course, there is one significant difference: time. The summer program has much less of it overall, as students only have seven weeks of instruction and two weeks in-country working with clients. EWMBA Teams are also made up of 4-5 students and led by a Team Lead, who is a classmate but unlike the FTMBA Program, the EWMBA Team Leads don’t have the additional weeks to work with their client to build rapport and gather intel on their project before their Team Members join the project. Instead, they have to jump right into the process and establish themselves as a lead of their project to their client and teammates. When asked about his strategy for being a Team Lead at this point in the process, the Samai Distillery Team Lead, Sushant Barave said:

Team Aramis

“Although we are at a very early stage, I am realizing how amazingly competent our team is. In a way, this makes my job as a team lead quite easy! I hate to call it a ‘strategy’ because it really boils down to keeping things really simple at this stage – having open communication, a structured approach to understand and address client’s needs, and making sure that all of us are having fun in the process!”

This is a sentiment we hear often from Team Leads in both the FTMBA and EWMBA programs. The Aramis Menswear Team Lead, Kalyan Pentapalli shared, “I have a very experienced team and sometimes it feels intimidating leading three third year students, but they have been gracious enough to let me set an example and lead.”

Lead, motivate, organize, delegate, and manage work streams is what our EWMBA Team Leads will do as they prepare to go in-country on July 1st. It’s a quick turn-around and with full-time jobs and other obligations, it is a lot to manage. “It has already been great working with the team, and we are getting familiar with each other’s working styles. Given our crazy schedules collectively as a group, we have also been open to calls ranging from 7 am to 11 pm – this goes to show the flexibility and commitment from the team members”, shares Barun Mazumdar, a member of the Aramis Team.

Many students come to Haas because of the opportunity IBD gives them. The Team Lead for ACT, Praveen Settipalli, was determined to take IBD before he graduated despite having a new baby and starting work at a startup. He heard first-hand experiences about IBD from his classmates and he, like so many others, felt he could benefit from the opportunity to work on an international consulting project. “As a product manager, IBD will help me renew my core-consulting skills of framing the problem, lead a diverse team to formulate the strategy and obtain resources for successful execution. Doing this in a different industry/culture with a team of amazing Haas MBAs will also teach me how to lead across diverse environments. Personally, the IBD structure would allow me to embrace uncertainty and openness and immerse myself in a new environment. I also hope to reflect on my current environment and leadership style while at the client location and come back not just with awesome solutions for the client but also unforgettable memories and experiences.”

Team Samai

Frank Schultz, the Instructor and Faculty Mentor for the EWMBA program is confident that his students will be able to balance all of their competing priorities to find personal and professional successes from their IBD experience. “I have been teaching the EWMBA IBD program since inception and every year I appreciate how much my teams dedicate themselves to their client and projects to provide true ROI – despite their day jobs and their families. I have no doubt that this year’s students will work very hard and like every year, they will enjoy getting a taste of consulting in a global setting. They will undoubtedly come back from their two weeks in-country with new perspectives, tools, and confidence to try different approaches.”

Teams will travel all over the world this July. Praveen’s team will work with a social enterprise that provides entrepreneurship training and mentorship to young Zimbabweans and Sushant is taking his team to Cambodia to work with a rum distillery start-up. We have one team that will travel to Mexico to work with a consumer and corporate financial services company, and Kalyan’s team will work with a privately held 20-year old menswear retailer in Brazil. We are confident that these EWMBA students will have unforgettable and invaluable experiences.

Our sweet ride while in Kampala that we affectionately call the “Mute-mobile” (our IBD team is creating the strategic plan for the Mutebile Center at Makerere University)

We arrived in Uganda around midnight, which meant we needed to wait an extra day to see the bright blue sky, rich red clay, and lush green foliage of East Africa. However, what we didn’t have to wait for were the bright smiles of the welcoming Ugandan people. Charles, one of our clients at Makerere University, was awaiting our arrival with a Berkeley baseball hat, personalized sign, decaled car, and a grin ear to ear. This would become standard during our first week in-country, when we would meet Makerere students, university professors, the Governor of the central Bank of Uganda, the Prime Minister, and many others.

Our team is working specifically with the Makerere University Private Sector Forum (PSF), which was established 11 years ago as a public-private partnership in the country’s largest and most prestigious university. The Forum’s mission is to bridge academia and the private sector to foster socioeconomic development throughout the country. It’s now launching a new center, for which our IBD team is creating the strategic plan, that will address the youth skills gap in Uganda.

Jeannie Valkevich demonstrating how to create a journey map

Before arriving, and continuing into our first-week in-country, we’ve conducted over 50 interviews across what our client calls the ‘trinity’: Academia, the Public Sector, and the Private Sector. Part of the process was understanding the student perspective and, in particular, their pain points as they enter the workforce. To that end, we carried out a design thinking workshop for 23 students, led by our team’s former rockstar teacher (and timekeeper connoisseur) Jeannie. After a silly icebreaker that involved some pretty embarrassing dance moves on our end, we asked students to draw out their “journey maps.” Students mapped out the high points when they felt encouraged and confident about the career development process, as well as low points when they felt confused or discouraged. Given that the students were overflowing with ideas Jeannie had her work cut out facilitating the group discussion.

Matt Hamilton showing off his flawless dance moves during the icebreaker

The workshop really started to get rolling after the break. Four groups of students, each paired with one IBD team member, began to ideate on potential programming for the new Center. After diverging, we encouraged students to converge around an agreed upon set of programs. The groups came up with a number of creative ideas–everything from a student-run farm, to a marketplace to share student ideas with the private sector, to a cross-faculty idea sharing platform. The groups then presented their ideas and recommendations (Shark Tank style) to PSF leadership. And they weren’t shy about asking questions or challenging each others’ proposed programs. As we closed out the session, we had to cut off half-a-dozen raised hands and ask them to keep the conversation going after the workshop. It was pretty inspiring to see how much energy the students had at the end of the three hours. One of the PSF staff members Patrick remarked afterward, “Our students often feel like their voices don’t matter–they were so happy to have their perspective considered.”

Hans Klinger working with the students as they begin to converge on a program idea for the center

After wrapping up the design workshop, we headed over to the Parliament of Uganda to meet with the Prime Minister, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, who just happens to be a Cal Alum. Dr. Rugunda has been a staunch supporter of this new center at Makerere University from the start. Before getting down to business, he was eager to hear which states in the U.S. we hailed from. He was back on campus just a few years ago for a class reunion, which I’m sure made some of his classmates feel unaccomplished. Apparently, Berkeley hasn’t changed much since 1978. He also mentioned there was an East Africa Berkeley reunion in Kampala just a few months ago–pretty cool knowing there’s a Cal Bears community in this part of the world. Before heading out, we gave Dr. Rugunda a Cal pennant as a gift, which we’re sure certain he’ll hang behind his desk, right next to the flag of Uganda.

“IBD was the best experience I had at Haas.” One of the reasons we repeatedly hear this sentiment from our Berkeley-Haas alumni is because of the client/student project dynamic. The IBD experience goes beyond the classroom and intersects with real life. For 24 years IBD clients have looked to the MBA’s in our IBD program to solve concrete challenges for their organizations. They have invested their time, resources and trust in our IBD consulting teams.

One of our exceptional spring 2017 IBD client organizations is known as Young Guru Academy or YGA. YGA is a non-profit organization founded in Turkey in 2000 with the mission of cultivating selfless leaders to realize the dream of a brighter future for younger generations.YGAstudents volunteer over 3,000 hours of their time working in teams on social innovation projects. The organization focuses on three fields of innovation – science, orphans, and the visually impaired – and develops innovations that impact the lives of many in these areas.

We asked Sezin Aydin, YGA’s Director of International Affairs, to answer some questions about YGA and the IBD experience to date.

IBD: What made you decide to participate in the IBD program?

YGA: Over the years, we have experienced that the essence of a fruitful partnership is one of shared values and meaning. Once we saw that (Berkeley-Haas and YGA) both value field study and we both find the development of a student imagining a better world to be meaningful, our passion in participating in the IBD program grew.

IBD: What do you hope to accomplish from your IBD experience?

YGA: The field we chose to collaborate with IBD Students is YGA’s project on the advancement of science among youth. The IBD team is specifically working on developing sustainable marketing and financial strategy for all three parts of the science project- the launch of a Science Museum to inspire youth and adults with attractive, inspiring and thought-provoking content, production of a Live Science Show, which will be broadcasted on CNNTurk; and the distribution of Science Kits which has been designed by YGA graduates and funded through crowdsourcing.

What strongly unites the IBD team and YGA in this project is the shared dream of children becoming more curious and enthusiastic about science. YGA brings years of experience of working with students from age 10 to 22, visually impaired students, orphans and recently, refugees, as well as knowledge of local opportunities, obstacles, and challenges. The IBD students, on the other hand, bring a global perspective as each team member comes from a different background and knowledge of best management practices.

IBD: How has the IBD experience been to date?

YGA Visits Berkeley-Haas

YGA: It has already been an amazing experience. Even before YGA was selected to participate in IBD program, we always felt we are on the same team.We are aware of the approach most international universities adopt for programs in Turkey nowadays. There are not enough words to explain our gratitude to Prof. Kristiana Raube for the support she has provided to YGA. We very much appreciate her confidence in us, and we will strive to make this meaningful collaboration work in the best way possible.

IBD: Have you enjoyed working with your Team Lead, Faculty Mentor, and newly formed Team Members?

YGA: Prof. Kristi said in our last meeting, “We feel like we are old friends now.” This is exactly how we feel about each other. Team Lead Chelsea Harris and Prof. Kristiana Raube devote many hours each week and have brought valuable resources to the YGA Science Project. Our team members, Amol Borcar, Mariana Martinez-Alarcon, Annie Porter and Jeanne Godleski, have impressive backgrounds from diverse fields. Their combined strength is a valuable resource for this project.

Berkeley’s culture is very close to YGA’s culture. We believe in the essence of Berkeley Culture’s 4 pillars, just, we have them in different words. We believe in questioning the status quo: we say “Positive Challenge” to do things in a better way. We believe in confidence without attitude: we say “Selfless Confidence.” We believe in the unlimited potential we possess: we say “Best Today, Better Tomorrow.” And we always believe in students: we say “Our main project is people project.”

IBD: Are you excited for any part of the process that is coming in the future?

YGA: Next week, our team will present a benchmark analysis of world-class science museums, their key performance indicators (KPIs) and examples of some of the best practices. The most exciting part will be their final presentation which they will be delivering to a very high executive level audience- the advisory board of the Science Museum. As challenging as it may be, we have no doubt it will also be a broad experience for them.

IBD: What are you most excited to share with your team when they arrive in Istanbul?

YGA: Most importantly, we would like to share the YGA culture. We already consider them YGA students, like ourselves. We would like to share our challenges and what we have learned from them. A special trip to Trabzon-Tonya, a north city by the Black Sea, is planned which includes science workshops with primary school students.

There will be two notable events which will take place during our teams’ in-country visit: Great Place to Work Awards Ceremony – in which YGA will be awarded a Great Place to Work in Turkey for the second time; and the YGA Annual Advisory Board Dinner in which YGA will announce its new entrepreneurship model.

Finally, İstanbul is one of the most glamourous cities in the world. We will enjoy the most beautiful views of this city throughout the program. Of course, Turkish cuisine is an inseparable part of the program, so we advise our team to start exercising in advance to make room for delicious food!The IBD Team leaves for Istanbul on May 13th to experience all that YGA has planned for them during their three weeks in-country. We look forward to hearing from the IBD Team about their experience. Please check back over the summer as we will feature blogs written by our student teams. We leave you with the last thought from Chelsea Harris, the IBD Team Lead, about how she feels about the partnership with YGA.